Dubai Shopping Festival

   One event that kept me waitng every year was the Dubai Shopping fesival. Some terrific memeoriesdWhen I first moved to Dubai in Januaray of 2002, the Dubai shopping festival was on. It is a month long event that ususally starts by mid Januaray. The shopping festival is a one stop enterinment spot for shoppers, family, children of all ages and tourists. It started on feb 15th 1996 as a initivate from the Dubai government to increase trade and tourism. During the festival, shops offers cut throat discounts on all their merchanise. Many malls plans shows and raffles  to keep their shoppers enterained. In 2009, visitor to dubai reached the mark on 3.35 million and spent 9.8 million Dirhams in just 32 days.

Global Village

The Global Village is setup each year for the Dubai Shopping festival but it runs longer than the festival period. The global village is a collection of pavilions that represents different countries of the world. What really caught my interest was how each pavilion was uniquely designed to  represent the originality of that country. Each Pavilion has numerous small and big stalls setup by the locals of that country that bring unique and distinctive merchandise of that country.

I visited  my home country Pakistan pavilion.It exhibit furiture, leather jackets, spices, clothes and art craft materials that was all imported from Pakistan. There were many small resturants that were serving authentic Pakistani food.For a moment, I felt as if I was walking on my home land.

This was the second pavilion that really caught my attention. It was the African Pavilion and represened the different  African countirs like kenya, Ethipoia, Uganda and Tanzania.The second pavilion that I was very attracted to was the African pavilion. As you enter, there was a shop that carried splendid frames of the beautiful landscape of the country.
I was deeply impressed by the hand crafted items on display on many of the stalls. Many of the vendors had shared some great stories of some of their very unique products were made.
      

Though I visited nearly all the Pavilions on my 5 hour Expendition to the Global Village, but the last Pavilion story that I want to share with you of  Jordan. The Debke Dance of the Jordanians took my heart. I was initially planning to skip this pavilion becuase I already visited alot of Arab countries pavilion but my small brother insisted on going there and so we did and it was worth it. The 5 min stage dance mesmerized the whole audience.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Shopping_Festival

http://www.traveldealsfinder.com/travel-packages/dubai-shopping-festival

http://www.globalvillage.ae/index.php?option=com_easygallery&view=easygallery&Itemid=1&lang=en

"This year's Global Village."LIFE IN DUBAI. 18th Dec. 2008. Web 8th June 2012http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.ca/2008/12/this-years-global-village.html
"Guide to the Global Village - Jordan Pavilion, plus Iran,Lebanon & Marocco!" Arabic Zeal. 17th Jan 2012. Web 7th June 2012.http://arabiczeal.com/category/global-village/